Republic in Danger?

One midnight last week a liveried lackey in the Chamber of Deputies reached up and stopped the clock. Hours later, still under the fiction that it was not yet June 1, when a new provisional monthly credit would have had to be voted, tired Premier Daladier summoned reporters.

"Messieurs," said he. "France has a budget. It is not the best budget in the world, with a deficit of over 3,500,000,000 francs [$163,450,000] among other weaknesses, but it is the best budget that anyone has a right to expect in these critical times."

Thus ended a seven-month battle which had sent the provisional budget from the Chamber to the Senate and back again nine times and overthrew the brief Government of Joseph Paul-Boncour. French brokers agreed that the long awaited budget might have been worse. High as the deficit is, it has been trimmed 75% from that which an amiable Chamber wished to present to the country in November. Three points that Premier Daladier fought for were gained: a 5% reduction in all Government expenditures except the army & navy *; sending to the committee the inflammatory Socialist proposal to set up a Government monopoly in oil distribution; retention of the 3,196,000-franc sinking fund to amortize the national debt.

The Paris Bourse boomed with the budget's publication.

It was not M. Daladier's persuasiveness alone that finally brought the budget to pass. French politicians were frightened. Taxpayers' protests, starting with parades, mass meetings and the closing of shops and cafes, took a new and threatening turn. Embattled taxpayers called at the homes of their representatives. One party of them broke into the parlor of Paul Maurice Jacquier, Reporter General of the Budget, and sat there until ejected by police. France has not been a Republic so long. There are plenty of Frenchmen who remember the bloody Commune of 1871, the conspiracy of General Boulanger. One who remembers both these things is elderly Senator Marcel Regnier. In the Agence Economique last week he wrote:

''Demonstrations are multiplying daily. . . . Appetites and passions are breaking loose, menacing public order, hindering the Nation's life and intimidating by their threats those who refuse to associate themselves with their maneuvers."

In the Senate Premier Daladier was even more explicit:

"The moment is not far off when we must act not only in the interest of national finances, but also in thai of the Republican regime. . . . Mob movements threaten to violate the domiciles of the people's representatives. ... If the means now at our disposal are insufficient I will ask for others from you.''

*Hotchkiss & Co., French manufacturers of swank motor cars and machine-guns, last week announced a 60-franc dividend on its common stock.

The automobile division was practically at a standstill, but the company was glad to announce:

"In the field of automatic arms firing infantry cartridges, Hotchkiss has notably brought to a high degree of perfection its rifle-machine gun which during the course of particularly severe official tests has demonstrated its qualities of precision and resistance. Thanks to the qualities of these various materials and to the reputation they have won in nearly all countries, Hotchkiss has been able to register sufficient orders to kep its factories in activity and maintain the normal staff of workers."

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